If anyone has any ACT advice to help me up my score, that would be fabulous. I’m taking the September 10th ACT.
I’ve taken the ACT 2 times, once last April and once last June, and got 26s both times. I’m really frustrated since from what I’ve read, the test is supposed to show your knowledge as a student, which it definitely hasn’t. English is my best section where I get 34s and up, Math is pretty decent, but Reading and Science are always low and vary A LOT from test to test. (I.E., I take a test and get a 28 in Reading, the next day I’ll take another and I get a 21).
If any of you have had to prep A LOT and earned a score of 30+, please help!!!
I understand your struggle with the ACT. I took a few practice tests last year and sometimes I would receive a 32 on the science and sometimes I would score a 25. This same thing happened with the reading as well. I always felt like I was running out of time on the reading section. Eventually I was able to score a 34 composite (36E 35M 31R 32S) on my last ACT (I’d gotten a 31 and 33 before that). My Science and Reading scores are on the lower end as well. My advice would be to prep as much as possible and as often as possible, but don’t get so stressed out that you become frustrated. That’ll only make you more nervous on test day. If you’re already scoring well on E and M, then just focus your efforts on R and S. Being more prepared will help you feel more confident on test day. Best of luck
The first time I took the ACT I got a 28 on it, this was partially because I had never seen the test since Duke Tip and wasn’t ready. However, the next time I took it (a month later) I had only studied around 2 hours was able to pull out a 33. How I was able to do this jump in just two hours was researching the test, something much more important than studying the material.
If you are looking for a score in the thirties chances are you already know and have basically mastered all the ideas that would be on the test sections. Now you just need to figure out the ways you get tripped up while taking the tests. Search the most common trick questions in each section and prepscholar blogs about the formatting of each section and you should do a lot better even after a limited time of doing this.
Thank you! @Sharkbait917 Also, did you find that taking sections untimed helped at all? I tend to get really panicked when I take tests under high time constraints, and, funny thing: When I take the reading section/science section untimed, I get 32s and 34s, but timed is when I repeatedly get scores in the mid 20s.
Thank you! @RoadTriptoCollege2017 Ughhh if only you could teach me your ways. I’ve researched the test up and down, taken tons of practice sections/tests, and still no use. I’m not a good standardized test taker. 3.9 GPA, but standardized tests are my weakness.
Always take sections timed. Before my first ACT I printed out 20 science tests and did them all. I got a 36 in science on the actual (though other sections suffered a bit)
@brownwhitebeige I’m of the opinion that you should always take PTs under timed and real testing conditions (get a proctor app for your phone too to simulate noise). That way you won’t be thrown off or flustered on test day by the time limit, people coughing, turning papers, etc. The more timed PTs you take, the more prepared you will be for the actual conditions on test day. If you take them untimed, of course you’re going to score higher, but it doesn’t let you know what improvements you’re making in your actual score. Since your scores are so much lower taking the timed versions this is especially true. You need to become comfortable taking the test under stressful conditions yet still maintain accuracy. Taking the test untimed is not going to help in this regard.
Another thing to do is after you’ve finished taking a PT, DO NOT immediately rush to the answers to score it and see what you made. That is an absolute waste and probably the worst thing you can do. As you’re taking the test the first time, circle any questions that you thought you might have missed/weren’t sure about. After you’re done, go back through the test and take your time answering the questions that you were not sure about to see if it was a difficulty issue, or if you were crunched for time, etc. Do this with a different colored pen so that if you change the answer you can score the original. When you’ve gone all the way back through the test you can actually score your original take. This will allow you to see what material you really don’t understand and what you really need to review or learn. It will also let you see which questions were just dumb mistakes, whether or not you are just having trouble reading carefully in the time alotted, etc. This method will probably give you the sharpest increase in scores since you’re actually understanding which questions you would never get right (and thus, need to study very hard for that material) and which ones you need to watch out for in terms of making stupid little errors.